Jackie Earle Haley dons a fedora and swings those razor-fingered gloves as he assumes the role of legendary horror icon Freddie Krueger. In the newly released re-imaging of Nightmare on Elm Street, he takes over for Robert Englund, the actor who made the disfigured dream killer infamous.

Parade.com’s Jeanne Wolf found out how Haley suffered a little to be scary and why he’s thrilled to continue his Oscar-nominated comeback after giving up on acting.

His take on why Freddie Krueger has endured.“He is like one of the coolest horror characters, the ultimate boogey man in a campfire story. Back in the mid ’80s, there was this bunch of scary guys in hit movies from Michael Myers to Jason Voorhees. But I always thought Freddy Krueger was the most interesting because it took an actor to play instead of a stunt guy. I thought Robert Englund was great in the role, and I admit I felt intimidated filling his shoes.”

Careful with those razor gloves.“They didn’t just come on and off. They kinda bolted them down. So a lot of times they would just leave the real sharp metal ones on instead of the plastic ones. I was definitely worried about falling on them or cutting somebody. It was kinda scary. I had this scene where I kind of swipe the blades across the chest of one of the young actors and I actually sliced him a little bit. Fortunately, he thought it was funny.”

His own worst nightmare.“When I was a kid, I remember dreaming that I’m sleeping but it seemed like I’m really awake. All of a sudden this 6-foot tall kind of man-tarantula busts through the door and scares the bejesus out of me. He comes at me. I’m racing down the hall in the first house that I grew up in, and right as he gets on top of me, I wake up. This happened time and time again. I’m not scared of spiders so I have no idea what this dream meant. Thankfully, I don’t have it anymore.”

His waking nightmare.“We had been shooting for a week straight and that’s a long time to work with the Freddy Krueger makeup on. For, like, 70 hours I was in that make-up. Finally, I’m lying in bed, trying to go to sleep, the make-up is off, and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with this feeling that I’m still wearing it. I can feel it all over my face, I kept touching myself going, ‘All right, relax. No, it’s there.’ It was bizarre and kinda scary.”

About that make-up.“I remember sitting there and thinking that it’s got to be better going to the dentist. And since then I’ve been to the dentist and I was right. It’s a lot easier having your tooth drilled. I had goop on top of goop on my face. I was really agitated for awhile. Surprisingly, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the contact lenses. One was kind of foggy and I couldn’t see out of it. And the other one was bloody. Everything was blurry and that didn’t put me in a good mood, which I guess works for me when I’m slicing people up.”

The beginning of a comeback.“I was directing commercials for a long time. I’d quit acting 10 or 15 years earlier. I remember popping into an acting class saying, ‘Hey, let me go do a scene, I haven’t done this in years. It’ll remind me what it’s like to be an actor.’ So I do a scene and in the middle of it, I literally felt this odd sensation bubble up and through me. I walked out of there going, ‘Oh, my God. I’m still an actor.’ I realized I needed to do it every now and then, never dreaming I’d be getting another career.”

Remembering the hard times.“I don’t know that I ever wrote myself off. It’s a very fickle business. There was a time where I just couldn’t make that transition from child actor to adult actor. So, to be getting a second shot at a career is more fascinating than the whole first go around. I’m a bit older, so I think that helps to temper the insecurities. But I still have them because this is a big scary world and this is a scary business. I’ve got a lot of emotional scars from when I was a kid.”